The Supreme Court on August 2 dismissed demand for a Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigation into the quid pro quo allegations of sale and purchase of electoral bonds
A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud with Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra dismissed a batch of petitions that sought a probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the misuse of electoral bonds scheme, particularly the allegations of quid pro quo between donors and political parties.
The bench observed that there were only assumptions at this stage on the alleged quid pro quo instances behind donations to the political parties.
“The petitions are founded on two assumptions that there was a quid pro quo in cases where there was award of contract or change in policy and that certain officials of investigative agency was involved and thereby probe by normal process of law will not be fair or independent. We have highlighted underlying premise of submissions to indicate that these are assumptions at the present stage and would require court to enter into roving inquiry into purchase of electoral bonds, donations made to political parties and arrangements made in nature of quid pro quo,” the bench said according to a Bar and Bench report.
The apex court added that individual grievances would have to be pursued through appropriate remedies under the law. Intervention of this court at this stage would postulate that normal remedies under the law would not be efficacious, the report added.
A five-judge Constitution bench had on February 15 scrapped the electoral bonds scheme of anonymous political funding introduced by the BJP government.
Following the judgement, the State Bank of India, which is the authorised financial institution under the scheme, had shared the data with the Election Commission of India, which later made the date available in the public domain.
The electoral bonds scheme, which was notified by the government on January 2, 2018, was pitched as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties as part of its efforts to bring in transparency in political funding.
